MTH 4901 Final Report

8/13/2019 MTH 4901 Final Report

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Chapter 1: Internship Introduction

1.1 The Objective of Industrial Training

For the duration of 8 weeks internship at LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd., I was required to study the

organization, Sales of Escapes Department to the practical situation.

The internship is a good opportunity for me to gain a working experience before graduated. The

internship enables me to understand how the theoretical portion of their studies can be applied to

the practical situations. The experience and understanding of the real life situations in industrial

organizations and their related environments can accelerate my learning process such that how

my knowledge could be used in a realistic way.

An internship program is organized to give me an opportunity for enhancing my capabilities to

adapt to the critical environment of business, communication skills, interaction between

colleagues and superior, promote human relations, the operation and work as a team.

In addition, this is a significant program to allow me to think critically in selecting the optimal

solution in handling a situation. During industrial training, I also can develop a sense of

responsibility toward my team, department, company and society.

1.2 Limitation

LivingSocial is a huge company which has many types of products and divisions and it is quite

impossible to cope up all the activities during 8 weeks internship period. The limitations prevail

while conducting the study. The basic limitations faced in preparing the report were:

The companys policy of not disclosing some data for obvious reasons, which would havebeen very much useful for the report.

Occationally it was difficult to collect data from the department files because important filesare kept in volt for safety and there is impossible to collect the data in current time.

Performance appraisal is a very sensitive issue and many information are not been disclosedas sack of secrecy.


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Chapter 2 The Background of LivingSocial

2.1 The Profile of the Company

LivingSocial helps people around the world to find, share and enjoy great local deals and unique

experiences. Through its daily deal emails and alerts, LivingSocial introduces members to

handpicked local businesses, products or services daily at savings of up to 50 percent or more.

Started from December 2007, the registered name for the company is formally known as

Integrated Methods Sdn. Bhd. which as a buying guide platform within consumers and

merchants. There appear the well known of a local marketplace named Everyday.com.my. The

goal of the company is to close the gap between consumers and merchants. As technologyrapidly grows, the company introduced Everyday Coupons which offers handpicked and unique

experiences to consumers. In September 2011, the company became a part of The LivingSocial

Family.

LivingSocial is originated from Washington, D. C. The Co-Founder and CEO is Tim

OShaughnessy. Tim sets and communicates LivingSocial's core strategy and oversees the

growth of company as the next great consumer brand. Besides that, Amazon invested in

LivingSocial and own 29% of LivingSocial.

Over global, there is 70 million members of LivingSocial worldwide in 26 countries with 64

markets. In Malaysia, there is 2,700,000 unique members and is still growing. LivingSocial

continued to strive and become a market leader in Malaysia.

Figure 1: Tim OShaughnessysets oversees LivingSocial growth as the next great consumer

brand.


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2.2 Company Organization Chart (Malaysia branch)

Figure 2: Working environment in LivingSocial

CEO / General Manager

(Jeremy Fitchet)

Sales (KL - Klang Valley)

DailyDeals

Hot SpotA,B,C,D

Shop

Home and Living,

Health Beauty,

Fashion and

Electronic

Media

Planner

(shop)

Logistic

Northern

Johor

Supersale

Financial Planning

Division

Escapes

Marketing

Division

HR & Admin

Operation

Group

Operation

Manager

Customer

Service

Media

Planner

Editorial Creative

Image

Merchant

Services

Photographer

Media

Planner


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2.3 Products of LivingSocial

LivingSocial is the online marketing platform which let the members to purchase and share the

best things everyday to do in the city. LivingSocial members can discover valuable local

experiences across the globe. With unique and diverse offerings each day, LivingSocial inspires

members to discover everything from weekend excursions to events and experiences to exclusive

gourmet dinners to family aquarium outings and more.

The products of LivingSocial can be divided into few categories such as daily deals, events and

experiences, escapes, shop and takeout & delivery.

Table 1: Various Categories of Products from LivingSocial

Categories of Products Descriptions

Daily Deals Different types of deals and discounts provided daily. The variety

of products includes from restaurants and family outings to

personal fitness, spa indulgences, home services and more.

Events & Experiences Exclusive access to concerts, one-of-a-kind outings, sporting

events, classes & more. For instance, yoga class, day care for

kids, pro studio photoshoot session, karaoke package, intensivepersonal make up workshop, facial therapy and more.

Escapes Launching of travel packages and guided adventures to different

destinations across the street and around the world. Different

destinations based on customers interests such as for family

packages, location in cities, luxury hotels and involve different

kind of activities.

Shop Customers can shop for collections of curated, high quality

merchandise complementing local experiences. These can be

divided into fashion, baby & kids, home & living, health &

beauty, digital & gadgets and sport & fitness.

Takeout & Delivery Online food can be ordered from nearby restaurants. Delivery is

free or free shipping for some food ordering and products.


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Chapter 3 Job Description

3.1 General Responsibilities

Within these 8 weeks of practical, I was assigned on responsibilities for performing a variety of

duties to support the Sales of Escapes Department function of the LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd.,

coordinating work within the Escapes department, as well as with other departments, co-operate

with travel agent, reporting pertinent information to manager and director and responding to

customers inquiries.

1. Hunting, looking and launching for wholesaler deals.

2. Assessing and planning for the potential wholesaler deals in Discovery Overland Holidays.

3. Assist in implementation of marketing strategies.

4. Perform analysis of marketing and sales data.

5. Do calculation and worksheet in obtaining the best rate for each travel package to the

LivingSocial customers.

6. Seek and analyze competitors marketing and sales materials both on and off line.

7. Research and qualify potential new partnerships/sales opportunities.

8. Co-operate with other departments as well in launching wholesaler deals which to be featured

on LivingSocial website.

9. Assist in answering customers enquiries and make rooms reservations with hotels via

Discovery Overland Holidays.

10. Undertake other responsibilities as assigned from time to time.


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3.2 Sales of Escapes Department

LivingSocial Escapes drives incremental revenue and builds brand for the hotels, resorts and

boutique hotels. The deals that are launched by Escapes Department are divided into direct deals

and wholesaler deals. The main difference is direct deals require the customers to make booking

directly with the hotels whereas wholesaler deals require LivingSocial Escapes to make the

booking for the customers through the third party and not directly with hotels.

The LivingSocial Escapes acts as a bond to link the customers with the hotels. We will negotiate

with the hotels to obtain the best promotional rate for the LivingSocial members. The travel

packages of the hotels are featured or advertised in LivingSocial website without any charge.

Thus, this is a risk free promotion. The attractive feature of the packages in website can promote

the hotels and let more customers to know about the hotels at the same time. As the popularity of

the hotels is increased, this can help the hotels to acquire more customers. In addition, the

prompt payment using credit card, debit card and online transfer are easy and convenient. Thus,

LivingSocial Escapes drives incremental revenue, builds brand for hotels, resorts and boutiques

hotels and contributes to the Malaysia tourism.


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3.2.1 The Flow of Process in Escapes

Figure 3: The flow of process of working in LivingSocial Escapes

LivingSocial Escapes negotiate with hotels to create a great promotion more than 50% discount

for LivingSocial members. We feature the travel packages of the hotels online with promotional

via Facebook and display on Google. LivingSocial market the super deal of the promotionaltravel packages for free. As the technology grows rapidly, customers can buy the super deal at

LivingSocial website using computer or android phone. Then, they will share the super deal with

friends and create buzz. This will gradually create the talking topic among people and increase

the popularity of the hotels. Customers are required to print out the deal voucher and make call to

make reservation for the day they prefer to stay. Finally, the buyers can enjoy their property.


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3.2.2 Wholesaler Deals

For the first 6 weeks, I was assigned a job in charge in launching the wholesaler deals. Initially, I

was given a target of 150 wholesaler deals in a month. Then, my department change strategy to

maximum 4 deals per day. Every day, I have to collect the data via online and offline to check

for the competitor selling rate and Discovery Overland Holidays selling rate. I will search for

online travel agents for the competitors selling rate for week day and weekend start from this

month till the end of year. The competitors are Agoda.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Mari-Mari

and Mariote.com. Analysis will be performed to observe the maximum, minimum of the selling

price and get the average of the selling price. Next, I conduct calculations by using Microsoft

Visual C++. This programming makes my job easier and faster instead of manual calculation.

Then, I will seek and analyze competitors marketing and sales materials that I obtained. I use the

C++ programming to calculate for the best selling price and margin for each travel package with

minimum 8% commission. Finally, I will perform analysis of marketing and sales data that I

record in my worksheet to see the potential of the deal to be launched.

3.2.3 Sales Agreement

After I get the best selling rate for the travel package from my calculation, I have to make a sales

agreement. Sales agreement is an agreement or contract in which property is transferred from the

vendor to the vendee for a fixed price in money. For the content of sales agreement, I have to

describe the room packages whether include breakfast, type of rooms, any additional of the

packages. Apart from that, the agreement includes voucher worth, voucher sales price, discount,

commission and the validity period for the packages. It is signed when a Discovery Overland

Holidays agreed for paying same money which is demanded and specified in this contract by the

LivingSocial. After that, the sales agreement will be submitted to manager and director for

approval.


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3.2.4 Fine Print

The next step, I have to produce the fine print for the wholesaler deals that I am going to launch

in LivingSocial website. I have to describe precisely the escapes kits for the package, specify the

travel period, additional terms and conditions with the blackout dates, check and check out time

and maximum occupancy per room. I have to check with the hotels to see any terms and

conditions since every hotels have their fixed rules. Then, I fix the period for reservation and

disclosure the terms and conditions for reservations which reservation must be made within 5

working days from the date of purchase; subject to room availability.

3.2.5 Salesforce

Salesforce.com Inc. is a global computing company which headquatered in San Francisco,

California. It is best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) product and

expanded into the "social enterprise arena" through acquisitions. After that, I load the wholesaler

deals that going to launch into Salesforce by creating leads, clone opportunities and so on. After

finish loading, I will submit to merchant advocate and junior researcher for approval. Functions

such as add deals, schedule a meeting, send e-mail, initiate a customer service inquiry and so on.

After approval, merchant advocate will fill in the deals into the pipeline. After I obtain the high

resolution images for the hotels, I send to the dropbox so that media planner will do their part in

producing the attractive deals in website.

Figure 4: Salesforce is best known for best known for its customer relationship

management (CRM) product.


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Figure 5: This is the opportunity that I clone when I load the wholesaler deal into Salesforce.

3.2.6 Inquiries by Customers and Make Reservations

For the last 2 weeks, due to lack of human resources in Escapes team. I was assigned replace the

merchant advocate job. I assist in answering all the incoming calls in a courteous and

professional manner. Besides, I have to respond and investigate customer inquiries, concerns and

issues via phone. The inquiries and reservations from the customers are received via emails.

Then, I have to reply all the sent in emails to the customers by utilising Salesforce. Every day, I

have to provide answers to inquiries relating to deals, payment status, refunds and any otherquestions that may rise. For the refund request case, I have to investigate the reasons why

customers request for refund and then require clarification from manager and Customer Service

Department to review and take action. After approved, the customers will be refunded with deal

bucks or cash.

For every wholesaler deals, customers must send in emails to [email protected]

to check for room availability before purchase the voucher and make reservations after purchase

the vouchers on their preferred day of check in. I will reply the customers emails and send

emails to Discovery Overland Holidays to confirm the booking. If the rooms request is fully

booked, then I will send email to inform customers to advise another alternative date. For every

case that I received, I will record every single case detail with current status in a reservation list

so that easy for me to follow up more than hundred of case in a week. Sometimes, the hotels may


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take some time to process the booking and give us feedback after few days. These may arise

some problems and the customers will call us to complain about this. Thus, I have to keep

updating the room reservations status with the Discovery Overland Holidays. Once receive the

confirmation voucher, I directly revert the voucher to customers. Finally, I close the cases with

minimal error once the customers cases have been resolved.

3.2.7 Invoice

Invoice is a commercial document issued by the company, indicating the products, quantities,

and agreed prices for products or services provided. Every day, Discovery Overland Holidays

issues the invoices and confirmation vouchers once they confirm the customers booking. I have

to print out every invoice and submit to manager on the end of day. The payment terms are

included on the invoice such as the payment must be made in 30 days from the date on the

invoice. LivingSocial could have already paid for the hotels room package listed on the invoice.

The document indicates the buyer LivingSocial and seller Discovery Overland Holidays, but the

term invoice indicated money is owed or owing.

3.3 Discovery Overland Holidays

Discovery Overland Holidays (DOH) is a travel agent which has a wide selection of products as

a guidance that they offer to the travel partners. In year 2000, DOH was founded by the

concoction of two corporate executive connoisseurs who had with them and more than 10 years

of leisure and corporate travel experience. LivingSocial Escapes co-operate with Discovery

Overland Holidays in launching the wholesaler deals. DOH offers us the services of hotelreservations, transportation, resort packages, private and exclusive travel arrangements and

promotional rate of different types of rooms in whole Malaysia. Now, DOH have branch offices

located in the main hubs of Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Langkawi, Kuching, Singapore and associate

offices in Phuket, Koh Samui & Bangkok to facilitate and provide a more services.


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Chapter 4 Statistical Analysis

4.1 Analysis of the factors that affects Revenue of Wholesaler Deals

Figure 6: The worksheet of total 65 wholesaler deals that I collected through online and offline

everyday with the record of my calculation of DOH rate before commission, DOH rate after

commission, margin, commission in percentage, Agoda average selling rate, LivingSocial selling

rate, difference between Agoda and LivingSocial selling rate and number of vouchers sold. Note

that the hotels are indicated by numbers since the name of hotels cannot be revealed due to

confidential.

Figure 7: Bar chart of number of hotels versus hotels rating

Figure 6 shows that there are total

65 of hotels where 15 hotels with

rating 3 stars, 33 hotels with rating

4 stars and 17 hotels with rating 5

stars. Thus, the wholesaler deals are

mostly hotels with 4 stars.


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Figure 8: Scatter plot of revenue versus hotels rating

Figure 9: Scatter plot of revenue versus the difference rate

between LivingSocial and Agoda

From the scatter plot in Figure 8, it

shows that the hotels rating with 5stars generate the highest revenue

which nearly RM8000. Thus, the

higher the rating of hotels, the

more revenue generated.

From the scatter plot in Figure 9,

we can see that most of the points

are ploted below RM60. That

means that the different selling

rate between LivingSocial andAgoda are mainly below RM60.

The scatter plot also show that the

highest record of revenue

generated is about RM7800 which

with difference of RM30 of selling


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Figure 10: Test for the Pearson correlation between Difference Rate with Agoda and Revenue

From the Pearsons product-moment correlation test, the -value is 0.01561 which is smaller

than the = 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. There is significance effect of difference

rate with Agoda on the revenue generated. The 95% confidence interval is lie between

0.05922327 and 0.50584045. The correlation is 0.2988063 which shows the relationship between

difference rate with Agoda and revenue. The positive correlation indicates that when the

difference rate with Agoda increase, the revenue also increase at the same time.

Figure 11: Test whether there is statistical significance evidence to conclude that the revenue is

affected by the rating fac

From the Anova table above, the ratio = 5.2165 with -value = 0.02575. By looking in -table

with tor= 0.05, we can see that Since the ratio of 5.2165 is greater than this

critical value 3.99. Thus, is rejected and conclude that there is significant difference of the

revenue with different rating of the hotels at a 5% level of significance.

There is no significance effect of the difference rate with Agoda on the revenue.

There is significance effect of the difference rate with Agoda on the revenue.

There is no significance difference of revenue with different the rating of hotels.

There is significance difference of revenue with different the rating of hotels.


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Chapter 5 Conclusion

5.1 Conclusion for the Industrial Training Programme

In conclusion, there were many things that I have experience and learned during the 8 weeks of

my Industrial Training at LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd. The whole internship period was very

interesting, instructive and challenging. Through this training I was able to gain new insights and

more comprehensive understanding about the real industry working condition and practice.

During the internship period, my department underwent some difficulty due to the lack of human

resources. The hard situation gives me a stress to push me to be extraordinary in adaptable in

problem solving and ability in decision making. The 8 weeks placement also has provided me the

opportunities to develop and improve my soft and functional skills. All of this valuable

experience and knowledge that I have gained were not only acquired through the direct

involvement in task given but also through other aspect of the training such as work observation,

interaction with colleagues, superior, and others third party related to the company. From what I

have undergone, I am totally agreed that the industrial training program have achieved its entire

primary objective. It is also the best ways to prepare university students in facing the real

working life. Although it is only 8 weeks of training, the experience in the industry during 8

weeks is valuable for me. I have learned to be more responsible for my position and be punctualon work. As a result of the programme, now I am more confident to enter the employment world

and build my future career.


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5.2 Recommendation

Some recommendations for the Sales of Escapes Department of the LivingSocial Sdn. Bhd. are

as following:

1. The employees in Sales Department should have faith on their abilities of convincing clients

besides the lowest rate offering by their company in winning businesses.

2. LivingSocial should take more skilful and experienced merchant advocate to make a

difference in the sector.

3. LivingSocial should have a systematic management and give a guidance to lead the employees

so that the employees feel secure to work longer.

4. LivingSocial should improve their reservation services and make a backup plan in case there is

unexpected incident happen.

5. LivingSocial should repair the network system because the slow internet can be a resistance to

to the working efficiency of the employees.


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Appendices

Appendix A: Input and Output for Calculation of Wholesale selling

price using C++ Programming#include#include#define m 30main(){

int comm;float i,x,y,agoda,selling,percent,z,margin;

printf("\nPlease enter DOH rate with comm = ");scanf("%f",&x);y=x-40;printf("\nDOH rate before comm = %.2f \n",y);printf("\nEnter Agoda selling price = ");scanf("%f",&agoda);

if (y


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Appendix B: Worksheet of Wholesaler Deals via Calculation and

Collection of Data via Online and Offline

Hotels Rating Rooms DOHbefore DOHafter Margin Commission Agoda LivingSocial Difference Sold

1 3 100 205 165 34 0.17 213.28 199 14.28 35

2 3 176 215 175 49 0.22 239.08 224 15.08 40

3 4 150 255 215 21 0.09 250 236 14 23

4 4 160 285 245 41 0.14 300 286 14 17

5 3 323 175 135 12 0.08 175 147 28 23

6 4 282 235 195 35 0.15 243 230 13 22

7 3 275 185 145 15 0.09 174 160 14 12

8 4 200 225 185 22 0.11 218.08 207 11.08 35

9 4 125 245 205 25 0.11 241.28 230 11.28 33

10 4 150 305 265 32 0.11 313.2 297 16.2 67

11 4 102 375 335 35 0.09 386.29 370 16.29 89

12 4 345 250 210 40 0.16 290 250 40 45

13 4 10 475 435 95 0.18 648 530 118 12

14 4 8 555 515 135 0.21 765 650 115 26

15 4 12 835 795 95 0.11 986 890 96 67

16 4 112 275 235 20 0.08 268 255 13 23

17 4 290 224 184 16 0.08 210 200 10 34

18 3 116 183 143 16 0.1 173 159 14 31

19 5 74 426 386 43 0.1 450 429 21 23

20 5 300 345 305 55 0.15 389.76 360 29.76 68

21 5 150 395 355 75 0.17 464 430 34 90

22 4 135 310 270 22 0.08 350 292 58 45

23 3 30 513 473 56 0.11 629.18 529 100.18 54

24 3 36 553 513 66 0.11 684.86 579 105.86 34

25 4 435 245 205 24 0.1 278.3 229 49.3 67

26 5 249 252 212 28 0.12 260 240 20 39

27 4 312 273 233 47 0.17 304.7 280 24.7 46

28 5 298 315 275 60 0.18 377 335 42 29

29 5 150 415 375 48 0.11 434 423 11 37

30 5 90 515 475 57 0.11 545 532 13 23

31 3 80 195 155 21 0.12 192 176 16 47

32 3 32 225 185 25 0.12 222 210 12 57

33 5 80 355 315 27 0.08 365 342 23 76

34 4 88 235 195 45 0.19 280 240 40 49

35 3 180 210 170 20 0.11 210 190 20 42

36 3 144 248 208 47 0.18 300 255 45 33

37 4 388 285 245 35 0.13 308.72 280 28.72 30

38 4 250 263 223 22 0.09 264.48 245 19.48 27


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39 4 131 273 233 27 0.1 287.68 260 27.68 38

40 4 243 275 235 35 0.13 296 270 26 47

41 4 90 213 173 37 0.18 238 210 28 106

42 4 108 243 203 32 0.14 268 235 33 97

43 5 100 245 205 20 0.09 264 225 39 39

44 5 84 265 225 29 0.11 272.6 254 18.6 47

45 4 200 235 195 40 0.17 278.4 235 43.4 31

46 4 65 370 330 70 0.18 464 400 64 37

47 4 258 235 195 27 0.12 245 222 23 64

48 3 413 180 140 25 0.15 203 165 38 37

49 3 88 215 175 21 0.11 210 196 14 32

50 5 70 955 915 105 0.1 1050 1020 30 75

51 5 55 1155 1115 130 0.1 1275 1245 30 24

52 5 110 770 730 60 0.08 830 790 40 15

53 5 120 805 765 65 0.08 854 830 24 22

54 5 81 835 795 80 0.09 900 875 25 12

55 5 120 250 210 40 0.16 300 250 50 38

56 5 60 310 270 60 0.18 400 330 70 26

57 4 204 255 215 20 0.09 278 235 43 32

58 4 110 203 163 17 0.09 198 180 18 18

59 4 83 313 273 32 0.1 328 305 23 14

60 4 70 295 255 45 0.15 400 300 100 26

61 4 51 345 305 95 0.24 500 400 100 21

62 4 358 414 374 66 0.15 475.6 440 35.6 67

63 4 695 257 217 19 0.08 267 236 31 52

64 3 20 212 172 15 0.08 203 187 16 14

65 3 30 258 218 22 0.09 257.2 240 17.2 26


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Appendix C: Code of the Statistical Analysis

To call the data set of CSV file:

data


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Appendix C: Series of Photos in LivingSocial

The reception desk of LivingSocial. The meeting situation in Sales Department.

Photo with my director of sales in Escapes

Mr. Ng Kim Yong.

Photo with my manager of Escapes

Ms. Lim Wei Ching.

Photo with my colleague Ms. Jane. The Escapes team in the Sales Department.


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Photo with Ms. Caryn from HR Department. Photo with Ms. Pui Lum from HR Department.

Photo with Ms. May and Ms. Janice fromOperation. Photo with Ms. Rinny from Customer Service.

Operating Department office.Photos with Ms. Mimi, Mr. Richard and Ms. Vivien

from media planner.


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MTH 4901 Final Report

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